The 10 biggest WTF moments in Game of Thrones so far

You could be hiding under the biggest rock in all of Westoros and you’ll still have heard of Game of Thrones.

And you’re probably sick to the teeth of people telling you to watch it too - but since it’s back tonight for the much-anticipated sixth season, there’s no escaping the death, dwarves and dragon-fest for a least another few weeks.

However, if you’d prefer to tune into the Corrie omnibus, you’re going to have to learn how to bluff your way through the dinner-party and pub conversations for the foreseeable future, which is easier said than done if you don’t know your Boltons from your Baratheons.

So we’ve complied the complete bluffer’s guide to Game of Thrones, a short list of all the major players (the ones who haven’t had their faces melted off at least) and all the biggest “WTF” moments to happen in seasons 1 to 5, ensuring that you can convincingly fudge your way through your friends’ in-depth episode analysis.

Oh, and in case it wasn’t immediately obvious – consider this your major Spoiler Alert.

Here’s the Biggest “WTF” moments so far:

Season 1

Jamie tries to kill a child (1)

When you’re knocking boots with your twin sister, the last thing you want is some little brat interrupting you, mid-coitus. So you push him out of a window, obviously. If you’re going to set the tone of a show then there’s no better way to do it than with incest and some attempted child-murder in season 1, episode 1. Back then we thought that was about as nasty as things could get – we were very, very wrong.

Ned is brown bread (2)

Rule one of creating a TV series is: identify your hero. Then make some obstacles for that hero, have him overcome them…and maybe throw in a few twists along the way. Generally, you can rely on the fact that good will triumph over evil and the bad guys. Except this is Game of Thrones, so they just behead the hero in season one and move swiftly on. What can we say, if you like a character, something terrible will inevitably happen to them – like Eastenders, with a better looking class of degenerate.

Season 2

Melisandre’s hocus pocus foetus (3)

If you’re looking for a reason not to watch Game of Thrones then the sentence “the red witch gives birth to a murderess shadow baby” is all the evidence you’ll need that this show is completely batshit. But honestly, it makes sense in the context of the episode. Sorta. Essentially, Melisandre has sex with Stannis and then pushes some mystical ghost child from her nether regions and it goes on a kill-fest.

Season 3

The Red Wedding (4)

Nobody, repeat, nobody, does shocking deaths quite like Game of Thrones so we should have smelled something fishy when many of the main characters were gathered together in one room, having a gay ol’ time. They slit the queen’s throat, slaughtered her son and stabbed his pregnant wife in the stomach. If that doesn’t make you want to go watch reruns of Dawson’s Creek then we don’t know what will.

Theon gets castrated (5)

Theon had been acting like a little scut for a while, so everyone had their fingers crossed that he had something nasty heading his way. Unfortunately, that something nasty turned out to be Ramsey Bolton, who promptly tortured him and cut off his penis. We were hoping for a bad case of gout or some boils – but the GoT writers don’t do half-hearted revenge.

Season 4

The King is dead (6)

Joffrey, everyone’s least favourite blonde sociopath, was quickly racking up a long list of enemies. And after mentally torturing Sansa, murdering a prostitute and generally being a despicable human being, his death couldn’t have come sooner. Being poisoned at his own wedding was a nice touch, especially since pretty much every guest there was a suspect, a true Iron Throne whodunit.

Tyrion kills his da (7)

As one of our favourite characters, we genuinely wanted good things for Tyrion. And when he fell in love with kind-hearted prostitute, Shae, we hoped for the best. We should have known better. When he found out that she was sleeping with his Da, he shot him with a crossbow while he was on the loo, which is standard enough. We had hoped that he’d spare Shae but alas, there’s nothing like a broken heart to bring out the worst in people.

Ygritte dies (8)

Poor Jon Snow, he’s forced to take his cute-but-illegitimate bum to the Wall and take a vow of celibacy. Which doesn’t last very long, predictably, when Ygritte the Wilding showed up. We couldn’t pronounce her name but we were still sad for Jon when she was shot through the chest by a small boy called Olly. First love never ends well, does it?

Season Five

Stannis has Shireen killed (9)

Yeah, Stannis had his bad moments, as discussed above; he had a witch’s ghost baby murder his brother. But generally he was considered an alright kinda guy, especially by GoT standards. So when Melisandre suggested that he needed to sacrifice his only daughter to become king, we were fairly sure he’d tell her to take her magical vagina elsewhere. Except he didn’t – he totally burned poor Shireen at the stake. That’s him off the Christmas card list.

Jon Snow “dies” (10)

This is barely even a spoiler because the image of Jon lying dead in the snow has been plastered everywhere at this stage. Still, it’s hard to underestimate the sheer shock value of having The Watch turn on their de facto leader – especially since it was that little ungrateful orphan Olly who delivered the final blow. Is he dead? Is he pretending? Is he going to come back as a wolf?